E380 



Kriiiiipi;(>i'<;r i;!:;!'/.!;..!:'.!;)' 



:rniiiiii!!;!;iiuii["/!i;i''u 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





DDDDSD3DE13 




^^^'•-rr^^^V/^ ^V^^'^o'^^ \/^^'*y'' 





'■>u. 




'. '•> 



•<-/-?<a»5f^" 0^-^ \'^.f>X'\^^ ^<-/-?^'* c?-^ ■ 












^a^c,'^ 











«^ - ^ 










*■_ * 




AN 



' ^©©mmss 



TO THE 



CATHOLIC VOTERS 



OF 



BALTIMORE. 






iJaltimcrc: 



PRINTED BY LUCAS Sa DEAVER 

• "^ Xo. 19 South Calvert street. 
1829. 



AN 



ADDRESS, ifec. 



Fellow Citizens: 

When, in times of high political excitement, appeals are 
made by one party, to principles and feelings ordained by our 
Creator to better purposes, and which the wisdom of man would 
not voluntarily invoke to subserve any secular end, we are forced, 
in self-defence, to measures of retahation. Respect for those 
with whom we are allied in politics and religion, imjwses the task 
of guarding them against delusion; and those who began the con- 
troversy may find our excuse, if they seek it — in their own exam- 
ple. For us — Mr. Adams might have entertained any theologi- 
cal opinions, unmolested. His religion is to himself and his God; 
and we thank Heaven that under our free constitution, man has 
nothing to do with it. Had his intolerance been obtruded upon 
our personal notice, it might, perhaps, have incurred the intellec- 
tual chastisement it merited. Were his libels, as an author, suf- 
ficiently illustrated by genius, to give them prominence among 
the thousands with which we have been assailed, they might have 
been subjected to the harsh refutation they deserve. Each, how- 
ever, of these motives to attack, being wanting, he might even 
have been spared the retribution due to his official insults towards 
our faith and its professors, while we passed them by as the effu- 
sions of private spleen prompting a mind of no common obduracy 
of prejudice. 

But when we witness the shallow trick of attempting to enlist 
in his behalf, through their religious affections, the very men 
whose holiest impressions he has falsified and insulted; when we 
see a venerable man urged forward from his dignified and virtu- 



ous retirement, into contests for which his habits and health alike 
unfit liim, in the hope that those who kneel with him before the 
same altar, and partake of the same most holy sacrifice, will fol- 
low him from the temple to the polls; longer silence on our part, 
were a disgraceful acquiescence under ungenerous imputations, 
and the unresisting surrender of our dearest earthly interests, to 
the most unworthy artifices. 

With the respectable Catholic, announced by the Adams con- 
vention, as a candidate for the next legislature, we have nothing 
here to do. He possesses our esteem and our regard. We 
venerate him as one of the fathers of our religious household. We 
yield him full credit for the sincerity of his political opinions, and 
we only regret that the weight of evidence does not affect us alike 
on every subject. But when a desperate 4)arty rely on him to 
conciliate, by his personal influence, the suffrages of his brothers 
in the faitli, we have a right, as Catholic^ to shew to Catholics, 
^\ ho is the man whom they are courted to sustain, in the person 
of their respected fellow christian. 

John Quincy Adams, then, is the man, who, on our national 
jubilee, when every invidious feeling might be supposed at rest, 
and every child of the constitution, whether native American or 
his adopted Catholic brother, invited to share, without reserve, 
in the general joy, came forward in the robes of state, and thus 
described tiie Religion, for their conscientious adherence to which, 
millions of Irishmen have been exiled from their native shores, and 
millions still groan in galling bondage at home; that Religion, 
whose amiable and accomplished votaries, and beneficent institu- 
tions were about and around him; that Religion, whose professors 
first proclaimed, and in this very State, (to which the spot on 
which he stood but recently belonged) the principles of religious 
liberty, and to which the sole surviving Patriarch of the Rev^olu- 
tion, whose name, appended to the "declaration of independence," 
he was about to profane by pronouncing it, looks fur die best re- 
ward of his patriotism and private virtues. — "That portkntous 
SYSTEM or DESPOTISM and SUPERSTITION, which, in 
THE NAME OF THE MEEK AND HUMBLE JESUS, 

HAO BEEN SPREAD OVER THE CHRISTIAN WORLD."* 

"In the theories of the crown and the MITRE," I e went 
on to say, "MAN had no rights. Neither the body nor 
the SOUL of the individual was his own. From the im- 

•Page 5, of "an Address delivered at the request of a Committee of the citi- 
zens of VVas)iii);;ton, on the o<5casion of readine; the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, on the fourth of July, 18:21, by John Quiacy Adams. City of \Vash- 
ington, printed by Davis &. Force, 18:^1." 



5 



V 



rENETUABLE GLOOM OF THIS INTELLECTUAL DARK- 
NESS, AND THE DEEP DEGRADATION OF THIS SER- 
Vl'llTDE, THE BRITISH NATION had PARTIALLY 

EMERGED." 1 es! tlius did he, without provocation, and in open 
violation of public and social decency, deliberately stigmatize the 
relii^ion ol Ccecilius Calvert, Charles Carroll, and O'Connel ! 

"How much," he proceeds, (page 0) "of these two qualities, 
(inttffligence and spirit) the fountains of all amelioration in the 
condiiion of men, was stifled by these two principles of SUB- 
SERVIENCY TO ECCLESL\STICAL USURPATION," 
&,c. ** "this is not the occasion to inquire. Of their tendency to 
palsy the vigour, and enervate the faculties of man, all philoso- 
phical reasoning, and all actual experience, concur in testimony." 
'•^They were the delusions of all Europe, still the most enlighten- 
ed and most improvable portion of the earth. *** Their spir- 
itual FETTERS WERE FORCED BY SUBTLETY WORKING UPON 

SUPERSTITION." But here our man of books stumbled, in his 
lieadlong career, over the numberless achievements of Catholic in- 
telligence, "bound and crippled," as he had described the human 
intellect, "by the double cords of ECCLESIASTICAL IM- 
POSTURE," 8ic. — and, by one desperate spring extricating 
himself from his embarrassment, he reached the old " ^vantage 
ground^ 

"The CORRUPTIONS and usurpations of the church, were 
the immediate objects of these reformers; but, at the foundation 
of all their exeitions, there was a single plain and almost self- 
evident principle — that man has a right to the exercise of his oum 
reason. It was this principle which the SOPHISTRY and RA- 
PACITY of the CHURCH had OBSCURED and OBLIT- 
ERATED; and which the intestine divisions of the same church 
itself first restored. The triumph of reason was the result of 
inquiry and discussion." 

We are not writing a controversy for the information of our 
christian brethren who differ from us, and, therefore, shall not 
pause to detect the falsehoods, and refute the calumnies involved 
in this farrago of intolerant ignorance. The least instructed 
among you can do it for himself. You can decide whether he 
truly says, (page 8,) "at the glance of reason, the tiara would 
have fallen from the brow of priesthood, ** but for the bword'' 
which protected it — "that sword which, like the flaming sword of 
the Cherubim, turned every way to debar access to the Tree of 
Life." You have some little knowledge of his "oppressors of 
the Church," and perhaf)s could ))rove that before he would 
have considered them "released liom the manacles of eccle- 



6 

siaslical domination, the minds of men began to investigate the 
foundations of civil government." (Page 8.) 

IJut, perhaps, you will consider this outrageous and unprovok- 
ed attack on your feelings, a mere electioneering trick of the 
aspiring Secretary, inconsistent as it was icith official decorum, in 
^ one entrusted with the regidaiion of our intercourse with the Cath- 
olic governments of Europe and America; and in christian charity, 
you will, perhaps, excuse an anti-catholic cry, got up, for a single 
occasion, on this side of the water. We rest on broader ground. 
We pronounce it an ordinary effusion of a jaundiced lieart; and, 
if you will accompany us in a brief review of his journal of his 
Silesian tour, twenty-eight years ago, you will, perhaps, accord 
with us — our limits will barely allow us to lay extracts of his work 
before you, with scarce a syllable of comment. 

The third of his Silesian letters, contains this unmanly para- 
grajih: — 

"In Sprotau there is a convent of nuns, dedicated to St. Mary 
IMagdalen, who, not being so liberal in their open intercourse 
with our sex as their great patroness, could not be visited by me." 

We give this passage emphasized as we find it printed, lest the 
slanderous insinuation against the purity of these holy ladies, be 
imputed to the fraud of the transcribers. And yet further, We 
pledge ourselves, that were he to republish the paragraph, or that 
wliich follows, with a simple substitution of the names of the 
nuns of the visitation, at Georgetown, or the Sisters of Charity at 
Emmittsburgh, the laws of his country would visit him with 
heavy penalties. 

The nineteenth letter of the series, is polluted with a similar 
indecent libel. "There are" (in Schweidnitz) "four cloisters; 
but like most of the Silesian convents, they are almost entirely 
without monks or nuns; excepting one, of the order of St. Ur- 
sula, where seven and twenty poor sisters bewail their virginity; 
and of which my wife can give a better account than 1; as the 
good nuns, according to the rules of their order, hold the male 
sex too much in abomination, to admit any of us, publicly, within 
their walls." 

In the 13tli letter, he pursues the same merry vein, concern- 
ing one of "the friends of CJod." "Her name was Hedwige, 
and she is known as a saint in the Roman Calendar. The 
Catholic Church at Ikrlin you know is dedicated to her. From 
the inscriptions on her pictures, of which there are two here in 
the Calholic Church at Lahnhaus, it would seem she was sainted 
for having repeatedly gone up the billon foot to hear mass there." 

}n letter 30th he is more particular. "She was a daughter of 



a Count of Baden, had been educated in a cloister, and pre- 
vailed upon her husband to squander almost all his revenues and 
9. great part of his domains, in founding, endowing, and enrich- 
ing religious houses. * * * She and her husband both possess- 
ed some valuable qualities; but, the grounds upon which she 
was raised to the Senate of the Roman Catholic mythology, 
were her superstition, her excessive veneration for the monks, 
and above all, her hberalily to the Church. Her son * * was 
so well educated in the same principles, and so faithfully prac- 
tised them, as to have obtained the sirname of the Pious!" 

And of similar import is the following passage in the 25th 
letter. "It" (the Cathedral at Breslau) contains relics too — for 
what is a Roman Catholic Church without relics? That of most 
note here is the stafFof St. Elizabeth, with a silver spiral plate wind- 
ing round it, upon which is engraved some account of her and 
her family. * * * She was canonized in 1235, but whether, 
like St. Hedwige, for going on foot up an hill to hear mass, or 
for what other cause soever, does not appear." 

The same letter proceeds — "a part of the head of St. John 
the Baptist (for they have not here as in other Churches the 
whole head) and his forefinger, are only shewn upon great fes- 
tivals." 

While on the subject of relics, wr may as well collect the tes- 
timony of our traveller, who blends with his details some hints 
upon faith and practice, new at least to us. 

In letter 20th, he says, "in one corner of the Church" (of 
Wartha) "I saw an ugly picture of a face done upon silk, and a 
small silver point of a spear, each of them under a frame and 
a glass, with certificates that they had been touched by certain 
holy relics at Rome and Ancona, such as the real face of Christ, 
and the spear which pierced his side. It should seem that, ac- 
cording to the Romish system, these real relics have a certain 
magnetic virtue, and that any thing touched by them becomes 
as efficacious as themselves. While I was looking at the un- 
seemly mask, a woman, after kneeling for some time before the 
great altar, came and devoutly kissed the glass that covered the 
face, and then tripped away as lightly as if she was sure all her 
sins were forgiven." 

In letter 23d we have the following: — "In the year 1218, a 
peasant by the name of Jann, being stone blind, happened to 
pass before a hollow lime tree, and was instantly restored to 
sight by the irradiation proceeding from it; which upon inspec- 
tion he found issued from a small image of the holy virgin in 
the hollow of the tree. Of this fact there can be no doubt; for 



It is represented m a picture which hangs directly over the spot 
where tlie lime tree stood. A Chapel was soon after built, ikc. 
the miraculous image is still kept in a glass frame. * * * Many 
a hundred thousand of poor blind people have, in the Course of 
six centuries repaired to it for health; but, of its efficacy to heal 
their diseases there is no testimony here. They have probably 
all returned at least as blind as they came. * * * * I was at- 
tended by one of the clerical persons who officiated at the 
Church, but he was so ashamed of his relics, that I perceived 
it gave him pain when I read the inscriptions around them, pur- 
porting what they are." 

We will now pass to the author's specimens of Catho- 
lic traditions. In letter 30th he says: — "Aricislaus" (the Po- 
lish Duke by whom, according to Mr. Adams, was founded the 
Bishopric of Breslau) "was born blind, but at the feast given to 
celebrate the happy event of his birth, he opened his eyes. 
This was an evident presage of his conversion to Christianity. 
The motive which finally produced diis regeni-ration was equally 
forcible. He had kept seven mistresses, and yet could get no 
children. The Holy Catholic faith was recommended to him 
as a recipe to cure barrenness; accordingly he was baptised, 
married a Bohemian princess, and begat sons and daughters." 

We repeat that with the private opinions of Mr. Adams we 
have nothing to do. Let him think of Catholics and their reli- 
gion as he pleases — but, when he comes forward as an author 
to retail, under the sanction of his name, every absurdity or 
profanity he has gathered from our adversaries, in a country, of 
which himself has said, (letter 3d) "there is, perhaps, no part 
of Europe where the root of bitterness between the two parties 
is yet so deep, and cleaves with such stubborness to the ground" — 
when he strains his turgid pen to point the calumny or the 
sneer — when he strives to add the weight of his own superficial 
observation to the scale already surcharged with prejudice against 
us, and supplies the deficiencies in his own opportunities by the 
foulest inuendo, — let the zest of liis ribaldry be its reward- — but 
let him not expect the votes of those he has vilified and slander- 
ed, through their favour, to an individual, however estimable. 

But it is for his graver charges against us that he is chiefly re- 
sponsible — these are the darts he has barbed most carefully, and 
which rankle deepest. In his 41st letter he has recorded this 
atrocious accusation. "From the period of the foundation" (of 
the Silesian bishopric, A. D. UGG) "for more than four centuiies, 
the opinion was almost universally prevalent here, as in the rest 
of Europe, that the co-mveni^ium of all. iiu.>lv.n virtue, and 



THE ATONEMENT OF ALL HUMAN VICE, Consisted iu foundilll^, 

building, and endowing, Churches, Cloisters, and other religious 



institutions." 



But the notions inculcated in the following extracts are yet 
more injurious. In letter 35th, he says: — "The house of Aus- 
tria ** continued zealously Catholic; and, by uniting the prin- 
ciples of intolerance wiih the practice of oppression, coin[)elled 
the Protestants, not only of its own dominions, but almost 
throughout Europe, to combine in leagues for the mutual sup- 
port of each other." Again, in the 41si letter, "The event of 
this" (the thirty years war) "was to leave die Silesian Protest- 
ants almost at the mercy of their temporal sovereign, who ad- 
hered to the Catholic cause, and was guided by the Catholic 
doctrine of bringing back all stragglers from the Church by 
compulsion." In letter od, we have this — "The Catholics hate 
the Protestants the more for their having, now, the secure and 
unlimited liberty in their worship!" In letter 24 he says — "Bres- 
lau contains upwards of sixty thousand inhabitants, of whom 
about one third are Catholics; * * * Nine of these Churches 
suffice for the Protestant inhabitants; the Catholics, of course, 
have twenty-six; many of which are, however, cloisters; and the 
streets are full of friars of all colours, black, white, and grey, 
with all their trumpery." Subsequently, in letter 41st, he has 
decked out a terrible bug-bear, by way of impressing the lesson 
he insidiously teaches, and which, you shall soon find, has not 
been thrown away. "The dominion which the Roman Catho- 
lic clergy had obtained over the souls, bodies, and estates 
OF men. * * * Their power was built upon a foundation too solid 
to be overturned by an arm of flesh." Now for the lesson. His 
41st letter, which, but that its author w-as known as the Ameri- 
can minister at Berlin, might, from its internal marks, have been 
ascribed, with plausibility, to some hired agent of the Bridsh 
Government, presents in connexion with a very incorrect oudine 
of the ecclesiastical history of Silesia, the following assertions: 
That the King of Prussia is the actual head of the Catholic 
Church in his dominions, and that the confirmation of die Bish- 
ops by the Pope is admitted "onl)^ as a bare formality," his spir- 
itual jurisdiction terminating in that act. In other words, that 
the Catholic Church in Prussia is modelled as regards ecclesi- 
astical polity, on the same principles with the Protestant Episco- 
pal Church of England; wdiich arrangement, though frequent- 
ly tendered them by the British Government, the Catholics 
have as uniformly rejected, as being incompatible with the 
integrity of their religion, which indeed is self evident to any 



I 



10 

one the least acquainted with their doctrines. Mr. Adams, how- 
ever, significantly adds, the King of Prussia "met with some op- 
position to the exercise of this power from the Chapter, but they 
soon found resistance useless, arid submitted. '''' The British min- 
isters understood liim, as appears from the annexed quotation 
from the "Truth Teller," of June 23d, 1828. 

In the debate in the House of Commons upon Sir Francis 
Burdet's motion in favour of the Catholics, the Solicitor General 
said — "In Prussia, where the Protestants formed . the greater 
part of the population, and the Catholics the smaller, a system 
was maintained which was directly at variance with the principle 
insisted upon by the Hon. Baronet. He found it stated, in a 
printed report, by Mr. Adams, a gentleman of acuteness and 
intelligence, who was now at the head of the American govern- 
ment, and who, at the period in question, was Minister at Berlin, 
that in Silesia, which was a Catholic country, the Pope confirmed 
the Bishops only in form, the King of Prussia being declared the 
head of all the churches in his dominions. There was an appeal 
to the Sovereign, to the Synod, but none to the Pope, and con- 
firmation by the Bishops of Rome was only a mere formalit}'. 
This was the statement of Mr. Adams— a statement which stood 
upon record in that House. Now he (the Solicitor General) 
maintained that if, in this country they only insisted with decent 
firmness on the same system, they would soon find the Catholics 
submitting to it. (Loud cheers from the opposition benches.) 
This was the decided impression on his mind." 

We will not pause to moot the curious question, how a printed 
report, from the American JMinister at Berlin, came to be "on 
record" in the British House of Commons, but will barely sur- 
mise, that the supporters of this "Mr. Adams," whose ignorance 
or malevolence has co-operated to rivet the chain upon bleeding 
Ireland, must credit us for far more christian charity than himself 
would allow, when they demand of us a return of benefits in the 
direct proportion of the evil he has inflicted. 

In letter third, speaking of the church at Sprotau, he says — 
"The most remarkable thing I met in the church was a paper 
posted up on the inner side of a confessional, written in latin, and 
containing a list of the sins to which the ordinary priest was for- 
bidden to grant absolution, as being expressly reserved for the 
consideration of the holy father himself. I expected to have 
found, at least, some heinous crimes upon the list, but unless the 
murder of a priest may be considered as of that denomination, 
there was not one." 



11 

One word more, from the 42d letter, in reference to the ten- 
dency (according to Mr. Adams) of the Catholic Religion, to 
obstruct the progress of intellectual improvement. "In Silesia they 
had at first many old prejudices to contend with. The indolence 
of the Catholic Clergy was averse to the new trouhlesome duty 
imposed on them. Their zeal was alarmed at the danger aris- 
ing from this dispersion of light to the stability of their church. 
They considered alike the spirit of innovation and the spirit of 
inquiry as their natural enemies." 

But these were the sentiments of a young man — let us ob- 
serve whether, as a teacher of youth at Cambridge, he swerved 
from die line of anti-Catholic detraction, in which' his literary 
career began — we quote from die Cambridge (we 'believe they 
were not found worthy of a second) edition of his "lectures on 
rhetoric." — His inaugural address, delivered June 12th, 180G, 
affords the following specimen of his candour and research — 
"Then succeeded the midnight of the monkish ages, when, with 
the other liberal arts, eloquence slumbered in the profound dark- 
ness of the cloister." (Vol. I. p. 20.) 

But the poppies still shed their narcotick dews over the fairest 
regions of the earth, witness Mr. Adams — (Vol. 1 pages o2.'3, 
333-4-5-6-7-S.) after premising that "the pid|)it has been the 
instrumeflt of the worst abuses of the Romish church" — "that 
"Athanasius and Peter die Hermit, successively, and success- 
fully employed this mighty engine for the propagation of error," 
he goes on to say, "There is a striking dilRrence between the 
eloquence of the pulpit, as it has appeared in the compositions 
of the French, and of the English divines. A French sermon is 
a popular discourse addressed almost exclusively to the feelings 
of the auditory. * * An English sermon is, or rather was until of 
late years, a cold, unimpassioned application to the understanding. 
* * * * The principle cause of the difference * * * is no other 
than the Protestant reformation. In France, and in other Ro- 
man Catholic countries, * * the exclusion of reasoning from the 
desk is just and consistent: the christian is not allowed to be a 
reasoner. * * * The sacred scriptures themselves are held to be 
mysteries above his understanding. * * * Under such a church 
there can be no occasion for argumentative sermons, and reason- 
ing is very naturally expelled from their pulpits. * * * A Roman 
Catholic believes in the existence of a God, in the immortality of 
his own sold, and in a future state of retribution, because the 
holy church has told him they are articles of faith. But, he is 
not allowed to ask die reason why. A Protestant is told to believe 
these fundamental points of religion, because upon examination 



12 

he will find them satisfactorily proven to his reason. * * * * The 
volume of sacred inspiration is opened before the preacher, and 
it is his duty to make it profitable to his hearers, for doctrine, 
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. The 
field here opened to the Protestant divine is inexhaustible. To 
the Roman Catholic preacher it is never opened at all. For 
with what propriety could he reason to his audience from a book 
which they are not perniitted to read? * * * The societies of 
christians, who place themselves under the ministration of a spi- 
ritual monitor, have a right to expect that he should consider, 
and treat them as rational, no less than sensitive beings" — But it 
was not sufficient to stigmatise all Roman Catholics as fools — a 
VENERABLK PORTION OF THEM, who havc dispensed light and 
happiness throughout every region of the earth, which has been 
pressed by the foot of the missionary, in the catalogue of whose 
sacred hand is enrolled the name of JOHN CARROLL, must 
be branded knaves — see vol. II. page 178. "This (equivoca- 
tion) "is one of the vilest modifications of falsehood; but it was 
taltght among the doctrines of the Jesuits." 

What wonder after this, that we are classed among heathens 
and idolaters! Hear Mr. Adams, (vol. I. page 241.) "Among 
the ancient heathens, the mythological doctrine and history sup- 
plied a copious fund, for encomiastick eloquence, in their num- 
berless divinities, demi-gods and heroes. The Roman Catho- 
lics," (mark the antithesis!) "by an easy substitution, have re- 
served to themselves the same themes in their hierarchy of 
saints, angels, and archangels, 

'Thrones dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers;' 

But the Protestant communities know too little of those 'or- 
ders bright,' those supernatural intelligences, to honour them 
with that panegyric to which, by their rank and dignity in the 
scale of being they may, perhaps, be entided; but which, in our 
ignorance, has an unfortunate tendency to lead us from venera- 
tion to worship, from die adoration of the True God to the idol- 
atry of his creatures." 

Thus, friends, did this intolerant scribbler, whom you are 
modestly requested to support for the sake of a worthy Catholic 
gendeman, labour to poison the wulls of knowledge, for the pure 
lip of the American youth, who, by their accidental advantages 
in the world, were to exert an important influence upon your des- 
tinies! As legislators to regulate the terms upon which many of 
you, foreigners, were to be admitted to our political fraternity — 
as lawyers and judges to control or excite the prejudices of your 
fellow citizens against you, in llie Courts of justice — as authors to 



13 

enlighten or cloud the public mind; and, generally, as members 
of the same community, to imparl to, or ulthholtl from you the en- 
dearing charities of life. Is it surprising that liis own oflicial 
practice should have conformed to liis own principles and feel- 
it)gs? That he could not even conduct a diplomatic correspon- 
dence, in reference to a most desirable object, (the guaranty to 
our Protestant fellow citizens, resident or trading in the exclusive- 
ly Catholic States of South America, of the free exercise of 
their religion,) without indulging a most offensive intemjierance of 
expression, calculated to defeat the very measure in viev\? (See 
his letter to Mr. Anderson, dated May 27th, 1823, and his 
message of March 15th, 1826.) No! but it is surprising, that 
men of common prudence and common decency should dare in- 
sult the Catholics of Baltimoio, by supposing their votes trans- 
ferable at the bidding of one man. 

We reiterate our solemn reprobation of this blending of reli- 
gion with our political discussions. We claim an exemption 
from such unhallowed appeals, as a fair corollary from our con- 
stitutional liberty of conscience, to men of every persuasion. 
We venerate religion too highly to prostitute her to party pur- 
poses. Had the friends of Mr. Adams permitted the Catho- 
lics to form their opinions upon the great political question 
vvhich divides us, upon legitimate grounds, the political abil- 
ities and principles of the respective candidates, we should 
never have come forward with this address. Not that these 
things were unknown to us, but because we deprecate the 
excitement of religious prejudices, as being equally offensive to 
God and to man; as tending to counteract the beneficent dispen- 
sations of our Creator, and to subvert the true foundations of 
popular government. But appeals have repeatedly been made 
to the feelings of Catholics, as such, by an administration paper 
in this very town. An administration address, composed by a 
distinguished Catholic of North Carolina, (Mr. Wm. Gaston) was 
republished in tbis state, with a preface expatiating on his devo- 
tion to the tenets and praetices of ovr church, and circulated in 
those counties where Catholics are most numerous. And but 
now, an aged Catholic gentleman is, for the first time in his life, 
presented for the suffrages of the people of Baltimore, as an ad- 
ministration candidate, with the same undenial-)le object of i!;flu- 
encing his friends of the same communion — Nay! the partizans 
of the administration already tritimphantly proclaim, that the 
Catholics, and especially the Irish, will follow in the tiain of 
their fellow christian and countiyman, and appeals have been 
made to more than one, whose names, if dem.anded, shall be 



14 

forthcoming, on this very ground. Are we guilty of these things.'' 
Because we disclaim attack, are we precluded from defence.'* 
Because we have not spoken till compelled, are our lips to be 
sealed for ever.'* We make no secret of our political preferences, 
though we have sought to infuse them into others only by con- 
stitutional means; and we rejoice that in the present emergency, 
which was not of our seeking, we are covered by the example 
of the pious and amiable among other denominations. An at- 
tempt was recently made to bias the pending election by a state- 
ment of the sentiments of the venerable ministry of the Methodist 
church. Numbers of those devoted men are daily coming for- 
ward with disavowals of the preference imputed to them, though 
censuring, like us, the course to which they have been impell- 
ed. We trust that, in meeting a similar artifice in a similar way, 
we shall experience an equal measure of liberality. 

In the execution of our task, we have laboured to spare the 
feelings of every christian, however he may differ from us. No 
one can justly take offence, if we represent ourselves as injured 
by charges which-vve solemnly deny. Nor, circumstanced as we 
are, should any one rebuke us for resisting an insidious appeal to 
our favour by shewing that no ground of favour exists. 

The friends of theadininistration say, "Catholics! support our 
ticket because our candidate is a Catholic." We reply, "Cath- 
olics! vote your conscientious sentiments upon the great question 
iu issue, without respect to the intermediate agents." The re- 
joinder comes, "but an influential Catholic is the friend of Mr. 
Adams, and that should recommend him to the favour of Cath- 
olics." We answer, "let Mr. Adams speak to us, as Catholics, 

for hiimelfy 

We profess to guard our Church against the intrusions of civil 
discord, as anxiously as any. We feel as deep an interest in the 
preservation of onr constitutional securities, than which none is 
more precious than the broad line traced by the wisdom of our 
fathers, between politics and religion; and we yield to none in 
fidelity to those institutions which protect it. We invoke with 
honest pride, the testimony, in our favour, of the Father of his 
Cotnitry: "I presume your fellow citizens will not forsjet the patri- 
otic part which you took in the accomplishment of their revolu- 
tion, and the establishment of their government — or the import- 
ant assistance which they received from a nation in which the 
Roman Catholic faith is professed."* And we appeal with equal 
confidence, to the voice of impartial iiistory. 

♦Gen Wa'-liin-ton's reply to an adiiress presented him in 1790, by John 
Carroll, since Anht.ishop of naltimore, Charles Carroll of Carrullton, Oomi- 
ni-k Lynch and Thainas Fit/oiinmons, on behalf of the Catholic Clcrgj and 



15 

" The Legislature of the Catholic province of Maryland, 
with a magnanunity unusual in such circumstances, extended to 
all sects, that associated with them, the entire enjoyment of reli- 
gious freedom. And so far had they been taught, by their own 
sufferings, to appreciate and revere this sacred privilege, Uiat 
even a contumelious expression against other denominations was 
expressly forbidden by their laws."* 

In conclusion, we renew the expression of our regret that allu- 
sions to an individual we esteem, should have been forced into 
such a discussion. We have conducted it, however, with the ut- 
most regard to his private delicacy. For what, though painful to 
us, was unavoidable, the blame must rest on those who began the 
contest. 

William Jenkins, Philip Laurenson, 

Edward I. Willson, T. Parkin Scott, 

Matthew Bennett, John Creagh. 
William George Read, 

* Sanderson's Biography of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence. 
Introduction page 50. • 



f4S 



"^•i^ 



^- /% 





'''^<,^ 







-0 




»°-^^. 








N\/\'-. 







^^-n^. 






















• ^°^ 



^^0^ 



/5wU £ . _ 




"ov" 




"oV" 















^^^ 
«• % 
























•" ^° % •" 'C?' .. ^ '" '^ ^ 



'■"^. 



M a 













